Yesterday Stephen Kinnock claimed in parliament that if following a Leave vote the UK exercised its sovereign right to withdraw – under the EU’s Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon – it would get a “punishment beating“. The claim is in itself revealing of the Europhile mindset, Stephen is of course the red prince son of former EU commissioner Neil and former MEP Glenys, it is also scaremongering with little credibility. The WTO’s rules outlaw punitive tariffs, this means that under international agreements any attempt to punish the UK with increased tariffs would be in contravention of international agreements. Not only that it also ignores the same Lisbon Treaty’s Article 8:

The Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.

“Punishment beatings” would hardly accord with good neighbourliness in an area of prosperity. The whole edifice of scaremongering by the remainer’s campaign is based on a bluff that the EU would somehow punish the UK with exclusion from the EU market – this is not just a falsehood, it would clearly be irrational on the part of our EU trading partners to punish their own exporters. Never mind it being in contravention of WTO and EU treaty obligations, the German big business lobby would just never let the politicians in Berlin or Brussels do it…